Johnsons of Whixley: An Analysis of Leadership, Culture, and Structure

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Johnsons of Whixley, a family-run nursery organization. It examines the company's structure, culture, and leadership practices, particularly focusing on the need for leadership development as the organization expands. The report highlights the current leadership structure, the importance of transactional leadership, and the roles leaders play within the agricultural industry. It discusses the impact of the hierarchical structure on employee motivation and retention. Furthermore, the report explores team building strategies, the importance of defining team roles and skills, and the need for effective communication and training programs. The report draws upon case study findings and relevant theories to offer insights into improving organizational performance and fostering employee engagement within Johnsons of Whixley.

Running head: JOHNSONS OF WHIXLEY
JOHNSONS OF WHIXLEY
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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Structure, Culture, Leadership:
Johnsons of Whixley is one of the major nursery organization of Europe, which has kept the
business within the family itself. It is a three generation organization that is quite flexible
considering the operational approaches of the company and the organization includes an
imaginative approach in its organizational conducts and to rewards its workforce. It is a very
small firm, with nearly 100 years of experience in this particular industry. The organization itself
is very innovative and imaginative, and it practices an exclusive authenticity in its operational
conducts. The 11 members if the family effectively manages the business and it is the family
members who holds all the leadership positions of the organization.
However, since the rise of the concept of sustainable business attitudes and integration of
the business ideas and the changes of the market trend, the need for leadership ha bee much
realized for the management of the organizational conducts. It is especially achieve with the
growth of the organization itself. They had started off as a small firm and gradually over almost
100 years the organization has expanded itself, and along with this, there has been initiated a
need for the practice of leadership.
As had been mentioned the leadership positions are essentially held by the members of
the family, but this only highlights a conservative and traditional approach, and in order for the
organization to become a large and international brand, it must practice the forms of
transactional leadership approach. Therefore, in this light, the structure, culture and the
leadership practices of the organization will be discussed in the following.
The current business head of the organization is John Richardson, who has been holding
the position for the past 50 years. It is under his supervision, and it is his innovative ideas which

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has made the organization a common and popular name as a plant supplying organization, and it
is his ideas that has made the organization popular across Europe. However, this particular
aspects can be looked at in two ways. First, the organization does not encourage change, and two
the organization has a good staff retention policy and system and a loyal and effective employee
base. Therefore, considering the first aspects, it can be said, that a young mind works faster, and
it is one of the sole responsibility of the organization to empower another young mind to take his
position in his absence. As there had been instances that, when a particular position is held for a
longer period of time, then it is likely that in the absence of the individuals the operational
aspects of the organization is thwarted (Commercial Nursery | Johnsons Of Whixley Home,
2020). Therefore, this is a very likable situation for the organization. More importantly, another
person in the similar position can provide an organization a different direction which can be
more effective for the growth of the organization itself.
However, in the management of an agricultural farm which is this much big, there is
essentially a need for the practice of leadership. More importantly, in a farming or agricultural
company, there are a number of sections or segments, where there is an increased need of the
management of the employees or the workers. Also, the marketing of the agricultural farm is
another most important aspect. Like other organization and like the other industries there are
potential amount of competitors in this industry as well, therefore, the marketing division of
Johnsons of Whixley also needed to be made strong and effective, and this is essentially the role
or responsibility of the leaders. Therefore, in the organization there is an essential need for
leadership development and thereupon, the practice of the same.
Considering an organization which remotely belongs to the agricultural industry, it can be
said , that there are essentially four basic roles of the leaders in the industry, first is, specific task

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activities, which includes the supervision and guidance for certain specific tasks, reacted to
manufacturing or service. This is also noted as the technical activity. The second type of role
involves the interpersonal activities, which includes managing communication system within the
farm, managing interpersonal relationships, within the organization. This refers to the
management of the relationship among the workers, managing the relationship between the
administration and the employees, as well as management of the interpersonal relationship with
the customers of the organization. A third type role or activities that the leaders of such
organizations are involved into is, the administrative works where, the organization, planning,
developmental aspects of the products and services are involved. These are the general
responsibilities of the leaders. A last attribute or activity of the leaders is to manage the
promotional activities of the organization (Vahl. 2018). This includes marketing, reaching to the
customers, trying to expand the customer base, planning for seminars and having a regular
update upon the activities of the market competitions this also includes, having a clear and
updated notion of the market, and therefore planning for the developmental plans, accordingly.
Now, according to the organizational members and the owner of the company, all these
aspects and responsibilities are taken care by the family members of the organization and the
business head of the organization. Therefore, it can be said that the organization essentially needs
to change its structural aspects in order to gain more profit and to expand their business. The
organizational conducts, which the company is involved into are quite traditional in its
endeavors. It has a hierarchical structure which is extreme and very limited, thus providing a
very small opportunity to the employees to rise and grow within the organization, which,
therefore, impacts upon their employee retention structure. It is likely that the organization is
bound to face an issue with employee turnover if it provides a limited growth opportunity to the

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employees. The growth opportunities work as motivating factors among the employees.
Considering the motivational theories of Maslow or Heisenberg, it can be stated that growth,
both positional and financial is the prime objective of the employees. Now, it is essentially the
role of the leaders to motivate the employees at a work place. The managers or the directors of
the organization are not likely to motivate the employees. Therefore, it is important that the
organization includes a transitional leadership structure to ensure an effective work structure.
Also, according to a case study of the organization, the owner of the company or the family
members have a different approach to the organizational conduct, they do not want to lose their
ownership upon anything, they want to be involved in all the decisions that are to be made for
the development of the organization. But, they are unable to understand that having involved the
employees into the organizational decision making process will gain the organization both
financially and structurally. Having diversified opinion will help the organization to grow more
(Abbasi, and Zamani-Miandashti. 2013). Along with this, the owner of the organization must
also understand the importance of including specific roles and including more divisions and
segments within the organization. It will not only help the organization to focus more and
equally upon all the organizational conducts, abut at the same time, it will also help the
organization to grow more and in all the aspects.
However, the organization has a very good training program and the management or the
administrative structure of the organization is also very effective and open. They also provide
options for internal job switch and provides enough training to the employees. As per the
interview of a current worker the organization includes a rigorous training segment for all the
newly joined employees. But, this is not maintained or practiced by a particular team which only
has the responsibility of the training programs, rather it is done or taken by those already

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working in other job roles. Therefore, this particular aspects of the organization must be
changed, and the inclusion or the development of a leadership attribute will help the organization
to grow and get enlarged (Armstrong, and Taylor. 2014). The development of the leadership
practice will help the organization in the management of the customers and will help the
organization to undertake the promotional activities in a sound manner. Along with this, the
leadership attribute will help the organization to focus more on the organizational planning,
communication management within the organizations as well as, in the aspects of organizational
development.

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References:
Abbasi, E. and Zamani-Miandashti, N., 2013. The role of transformational leadership,
organizational culture and organizational learning in improving the performance of Iranian
agricultural faculties. Higher Education, 66(4), pp.505-519.
Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S., 2014. Armstrong's Handbook of Human Resource Management
Practice: Edition 13. Kogan page.
Commercial Nursery | Johnsons Of Whixley Home. (2020). Johnsons of Whixley meet the boss -
John Richardson. [online] Available at: https://nurserymen.co.uk/johnsons-of-whixley-meet-the-
boss-john-richardson/ [Accessed 9 Feb. 2020].
Vahl, R., 2018. Leadership in Disguise: Role of the European Commission in EC Decision-
making on Agriculture in the Uruguay Round. Routledge.

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Motivation, Effective Team Building, Identify Team Development Attributes and
the Success of Johnsons of Whixley:
The Johnson of Whixley is one of the most popular organizations in the country, and the
kind of service they aim to provide is not provided by very few other organizations. Therefore,
the competition in the market, is still very less, which provides the organization ample amount of
opportunities to grow more. Therefore, Johnsons of Whixley must take into account the
approaches of transactional leadership. The transactional leadership approaches is the most
effective leadership approach for the organizational structures like the Johnsons of Whixley.
This particular leadership structure includes three prime factors, first supervision, ten
organization and lastly performance, thus ensuring growth of the organization. Therefore the first
criteria of the transactional leadership is developing or building teams.
A team is more than just a group of people performing their responsibilities. Rather, a
team refers to a group of people who work together in order to appropriate a common goal and
common objectives. A team shares the responsibilities as well as the roles and therefore, works
together conjointly towards the realization of the organizational goals. Therefore, building of the
tea is one of the crucial and critical aspect. The manager of the organization must develop certain
parameters to create teams (Haas, and Mortensen. 2016). A team is generally built depending
upon the responsibilities a group of people performs and considering the case organizations, it
can be said that there can be one technical team who will be in charge of all the technological
issues, a marketing team who will undertake the responsibility of the promotion processes,, a
recruiting team who will be only performing the responsibilities of the recruitment section and
the like (Omar et al., 2016). Now, in order to develop a team the following process can be
followed or included by the organization.

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First the organization needs to define and determine the roles that each team would perform and
thereafter it will need to define the skill set that each of the teams would need in order to
appropriate the team goals.
Secondly, determine the individual roles of a team. It is very important. Each of the teams will
have different job roles, and the members of these teams will further have a particular job roles
which will define their position within the team. The sole purpose of creating a team is to
provide more focus on each of the responsibilities and thus ensuring the quality of the service.
According to Belbin, the role differentiation among the employees helps the organization to
better their quality (Batenburg, and van Walbeek. 2013).
Each of the teams must develop their specific ideas and their specific strategies to meet
the team goals and therefore the organizational goals. Development of the strategy refers to
developing team cohesion, developing the interdependence within the team, and at the same time
developing a communicational strategy within the team (Katzenbach, and Smith. 2015). Thus
team ambience must be created so that the members can enjoy working with each other. Lastly, a
training program must as well be developed in order to ensure the realization of the personal
goals or individual roles of the team members (Dyer, Dyer, and Dyer. 22013).
Considering the particular case example it is very important that a training division is
developed, as each of the plant has different requirement, and the attention required by each of
the plants is also different as well.
Now, the second step that comes after including the team building approach is to develop
leadership management. In order to manage each of the teams, a leadership program must be
developed and included. The leaders are the ones, who motivate the team members and guide

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them through the difficult and critical part of the business. At the same time, it is the role of the
leader to build a team morale and create an ambience of belongingness and cohesiveness within
the team (GOTTFREDSON. 2015). At the same time, it is essentially the role of the leaders to
include opportunities for the employees to involve their creative and innovative skills. However
the most important function or role of the leaders is to employ motivation among the team
members.
A number of researchers have developed concepts of motivation and have develop an
understanding of the significance of motivation in order to ensure the quality services produced
by the team and at the same time, the motivating the employees is needed to meet the
organizational goals as well as the personal goals of the employees. Therefore, the basic aspect
of motivation is that, it is need driven. Motivating the employees is needed to ensure their
requirements (Taormina, and Gao. 2013). Considering the theories of Maslow is observed that
the sole purpose of the employees to be joining an organization sis determined by their needs,
which are characterized by basic, psychological and personal needs. The employees of an
organization not only needs to fulfil the basic necessities like safety or food, rather at the same
time, they have certain personalized goals like the striving for growth and position, for a social
position, as well as gaining a good amount of money (Cherry. 2013).
A similar orientation is found in the theories of Herzberg, who stated that there are two
factors of needs, the hygiene factor which must be absent in the organization and that is what
motivates the employees, and on the other hand the motivators, which are or should be present in
the organization (Masood et al. 2016).

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Another important theory that can be mentioned is the Equity Theory, which states that in
an organization there must be fairness and equity or equality and such an aspect of the
organization helps in motivating the members (Lăzăroiu. 2015). Therefore considering the case
example, it can be said that the organization effectively needs to implement the leadership
attributes in order to ensure the quality of the services provided and to retain the employees for a
longer period of time.
Now, in this notion the last important thing to mention is the team conflict approaches.
According to the researchers and the market analysts it is important that while discussing about
team development, the team conflict approach is also considered. The team conflict can be
developed due to a number of reasons. The prime reason for conflict is the differences of
opinion. It is often seen that while developing organizational strategies, different members of the
team comes up with different solutions, thus leading to a conflict situation (Thomas, and
Kilmann. 2017). A second reason can be the team diversity. Since, it is a globalized world,
therefore different people come from different parts of the world to work together, and it is seen
that in certain cases this belongingness to different parts can contribute in the cropping up of
team insolvencies. Lastly, there can be conflicts reacted to holding positions (Saeed et al. 2014).
It is a very common phenomenon, when the same team members strive to hold a similar higher
position, resulting into conflict.
Therefore, to resolve such a condition, the role of the leaders is undeniable, and it is
essentially theme who can manage such situations. Firstly, the leaders must develop certain
strategies to ensure a good and effective communication within the team. Therefore, all the
members of the team must be included in the decision making process, thus to manage the
impact of diversity (Rahim. 2017). But more importantly, the elders must try to develop a

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belongingness ambience within the team which will further ensure a mutual respect among the
team members resulting into no team conflict (Toegel, and Barsoux. 2016).
References:
Batenburg, R. and van Walbeek, W., 2013. Belbin role diversity and team performance: is there
a relationship?. Journal of Management Development.
Cherry, K., 2013. The five levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. How Maslow's Famous
Hierarchy Explains Huma Motivation.
Dyer Jr, W.G., Dyer, J.H. and Dyer, W.G., 2013. Team building: Proven strategies for
improving team performance. John Wiley & Sons.
GOTTFREDSON, R.K., 2015. How to get YOUR TEAMS to work. Industrial
Management, 57(4).
Haas, M. and Mortensen, M., 2016. The secrets of great teamwork. Harvard business
review, 94(6), pp.70-76.
Katzenbach, J.R. and Smith, D.K., 2015. The wisdom of teams: Creating the high-performance
organization. Harvard Business Review Press.
Lăzăroiu, G., 2015. Employee motivation and job performance. Linguistic and Philosophical
Investigations, (14), pp.97-102.
Masood, S., Faizal, M., Zaz, Z., Ali, A.F., Raza, J. and Shah, M.B., 2016. The most general form
of deformation of the Heisenberg algebra from the generalized uncertainty principle. Physics
Letters B, 763, pp.218-227.